


If I Could Tell You

by draculard



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Angst, Che'ri and Thrawn's 5-Week Mission, Feelings of Inadequacy, Ghosts, Hurt No Comfort, Insecure Eli Vanto, M/M, Mentor/Protege Relationship, Minor Injuries, Post-Star Wars: Rebels, Rescue Missions, The Third Sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28256700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Che'ri asks Thrawn a personal question // Che'ri meets Eli Vanto for the first time.
Relationships: Che'ri & Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo, Thrass | Mitth'ras'safis & Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo, Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto
Comments: 22
Kudos: 80





	If I Could Tell You

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from W.H. Auden's "But I Can't."
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr, I'm draculard there too

**Part I**

“You don’t know a whole lot about the Sight, do you?” 

Silence greeted her question, giving Che’ri time to regret her phrasing — but she didn’t regret it enough to take it back. Ignorance toward the Sight was something Che’ri has long suspected about the adults around her — Thalias excluded — but she’d always been too diplomatic (and too afraid of punishment) to put it into words. 

Now, at the end of their five-week mission, she knew three things for certain: first, that Thrawn might be polite, but that didn’t mean he really cared about diplomacy or would judge her for setting it aside; second, that he wouldn’t ever punish her for asking a question; and third, that Thrawn was injured, the fabric of his uniform melted and charred over his chest, and somehow this had invited the _thing_ standing behind him.

And Thrawn didn’t know the thing was there.

Thrawn paused in the middle of removing his tunic and glanced over at her when she asked her question, but didn’t reprimand her for following him into the ship’s tiny medical bay. Her eyes flicked over his shoulder, then back to him, and he raised an eyebrow but didn’t turn to see what she was looking at.

“No more than the Aristocra wish me to know,” he admitted, his face difficult to read. He studied her a moment while Che’ri deliberately avoided his eyes, suddenly doubting herself. Eventually, Thrawn folded his tunic and set it aside, reaching for the medical kit instead. He sat down at an odd angle perpendicular to Che’ri, facing the wall instead of her — probably to make her feel less like a specimen under a microscope.

Without glancing at her, he opened the medical kit and said, “You’re troubled by something.”

Che’ri shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Her eyes flicked over Thrawn’s shoulder again, to the empty space between his cot and the storage cabinet. He followed her gaze, saw nothing, and glanced briefly at her afterward, his eyes narrowed in thought. 

“Che’ri,” he said, his voice level, “could you hand me the antibacterial gel?”

She turned away from him at once, grateful for any excuse to focus her attention elsewhere. Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see the thing in the corner — the thing that Thrawn couldn’t seem to see. With her back to Thrawn, she pulled open a nearby drawer and scanned the contents, but everything was so well-organized and carefully labeled that she was scared to touch anything.

“Sometimes,” Thrawn said, his voice soft and distracted, “adults are upset by the things you tell them. That doesn’t mean it’s best to stop telling them things.”

Che’ri paused, her hands hovering over a tin with an unfamiliar and unpronounceable word on the label. She should have been used to Thrawn reading her mind by now, but it still sent a not-unpleasant chill up her spine — uncomfortable to be seen, relieved to be understood without having to say it.

“I know,” she said.

“And sometimes it’s difficult to push through a fear of retribution,” Thrawn said. Then, before Che’ri could ask about that last word, he explained, “Punishment.”

“Oh,” said Che’ri.

“But in this case,” said Thrawn, and then paused. There was the sound of squeaking plastic, and when Che’ri glanced over her shoulder, she saw that he already had the antibacterial gel in his hands and was busy removing the cap. “The medical tape, please,” he said without looking up, giving her another pointless chore to embark on.

“But in this case…?” Che’ri said. She continued her futile search, now almost convinced that Thrawn had all the medical supplies he needed in his kit and was just trying to distract her. 

There was a brief pause, like Thrawn was considering how best to illustrate his point.

“You have made statements and asked questions in the past which upset me,” he informed her. “Do you remember them?”

Che’ri spun around, abandoning her search entirely, and frowned at Thrawn. “I’ve never upset you,” she said, but it came out almost like a question.

“What’s your evidence of that?” Thrawn asked. He tore off a strip of medical tape and the thing behind him rolled its eyes. 

“What do you mean?” asked Che’ri.

Thrawn rephrased the question. “How can you tell when an adult is upset with you?”

Che’ri’s brow creased. “Because they yell at you,” she said. And then, remembering a favorite criticism of her last momish, “Sorry, they don’t _yell_. They get _sharp_ with you.”

A faint smile touched Thrawn’s lips. “And sometimes they yell,” he acknowledged. 

Che’ri almost smiled in return, but it died before it reached her eyes. 

“What else?” Thrawn prompted.

After a moment of thought, Che’ri gestured to her face. “They blush. They do _this_ with their hands—” She threw her hands up in mock exasperation. “—and sometimes they throw things, or they stomp away and slam the door.”

“Yes.” Thrawn tore off another strip of medical tape and applied a cold-pack bandage to his chest. He hadn’t explained to her what happened down there on the alien planet, and Che’ri wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “What else?” he asked.

“They stop talking to you for a while,” Che’ri said, remembering a particularly cold week she’d spent when she was seven and her momish refused to interact with her except to give her meals and silently download lessons to her questis. “And they start harping on you about things that didn’t make them mad before, like not matching your socks or folding up your bunk before you leave for the day.”

Thrawn nodded absently; his face was so placid that Che’ri almost wondered if he was really listening to her or not. “Have I ever done any of those things to you?” he asked.

“No,” said Che’ri honestly.

Thrawn didn’t belabor the point. He glanced up at her briefly as he closed the medical kit. “What would you like to tell me?” he asked, his voice changing, becoming gentler.

Che’ri hesitated. She leaned against the wall, hands clasped behind her back, and felt her eyes shift to that corner of the room again against her will. She tried to look away, but a nervous tic of the head pulled her right back again.

“If you _do_ know anything about the Sight,” she said finally, the words coming out in a quiet rush, “you have to tell me.”

Thrawn’s expression didn’t change, and he didn’t try to track what she was seeing. “May I ask why?”

The truth was that Che’ri didn’t want to look stupid by explaining something he already knew.

“I don’t want to accidentally tell you more than you’re allowed to know,” she said instead, putting on an air of importance, and a flicker of something — too quick to read, but maybe fondness — passed over Thrawn’s face.

“I know those with the Sight are mostly female, with precognitive abilities manifesting at around the age of three, and training which usually begins at five or six,” Thrawn said, bowing to her demands. “I know other species have their own version of the Sight, often connected to a mythology, with some showing signs of different abilities not seen in the Chiss.”

A spark of excitement made Che’ri’s heart pound in her chest. “Different how?” she asked, trying to sound casual, like she already knew. A brief slant of Thrawn’s eyes suggested she hadn’t entirely succeeded. 

“I’ve seen evidence of telekinesis, the ability to move objects without seeming to exert an outside force,” he said, his voice neutral. “And I’ve seen evidence of psychological influence — mind control — but whether or not that works seems to depend on various different factors, such as the subject’s species.”

Che’ri’s heart was no longer racing; about halfway through Thrawn’s explanation, her excitement had faded. None of the things he listed had any relevance here. He studied her face and raised an eyebrow, as if realizing how her feelings had changed.

“I know of Second Sight,” he said, like a consolation prize.

Che’ri dismissed this with a shrug.

“It’s not the same,” she said. “It’s just…” She bit her lip, let her eyes slide closed. She could feel herself blushing in advance, regardless of Thrawn’s reaction, and in her head she could hear the faint voice of one of her first momishes accusing her of telling stories and forbidding her from watching any scary films before bed. 

“You know ... echoes?” Che’ri asked, forcing herself to say it.

Thrawn didn’t respond immediately. He studied her for a moment before pushing himself up from the cot. “I’m familiar with the concept,” he said. He gestured politely toward the door and Che’ri led the way out, letting Thrawn grab a fresh tunic from his quarters while they talked. “I have a feeling you’re not talking about sound,” he added as he shrugged it on.

“No,” said Che’ri, her limbs tingling. She glanced at the thing that had followed Thrawn out of the medical bay, noticed only by her. Thrawn fastened his tunic without expression, apparently unfazed by her answer, even though just admitting it sent a buzz of adrenaline through Che'ri's veins. “I’m not making it up,” she said.

Thrawn looked at her square-on, his eyes suddenly intense. “I know you aren’t,” he said firmly. His face was stern, allowing no room for argument.

Che'ri hesitated. “You mean you know about…?”

“I know _you_ ,” Thrawn said. He said nothing for a moment, and neither did Che’ri, half-intimidated by his gaze and half-unsure what to say. When the silence stretched out between them, thick and uncomfortable, Thrawn made a slow, deliberate turn to face the empty stretch of hallway behind him.

He didn’t realize it — he had no way of knowing — but he was staring his dead brother in the face.

Che’ri had seen Mitth’ras’safis’s photo in the files Thalias downloaded for her; she knew how recently he’d died, and the vague details that had been published about how it happened. Right now, he looked different from his photo — a few years older, his hair shorter, his clothes more expensive and his face more lined — and that was the only reason Che’ri had found the courage to say something in the first place. Because she'd never seen Thrass like this; if she were imagining things, surely she would picture him the way he'd been in Thalias's file.

She remembered her first momish’s words, when she’d been stupid enough to point out an echo without thinking about it first: _You’re making it up._ And later, _You watch too many scary holos on that questis of yours._ And later, when Che’ri tried to argue, tried to prove what she could see, _You’re just describing the images on my storage card. You’ve been snooping again._

She didn’t have that problem here. She could describe the echo that had been shadowing Thrawn since he returned to the ship, and she knew he would believe her — or at least, he wouldn’t treat her any differently for telling him. He might even listen to the evidence, ask some questions, use his clearance to find more information and tell her things that even she didn't know about this aspect of the Sight. But what would she say? What _could_ she say?

That his brother’s face was tight with anger every time he looked at him? That he frowned in disapproval every time Thrawn brought up the outsiders he’d met planet-side, as if just thinking about them put a sour taste in his mouth? Could she look Thrawn in the eye and tell him that his brother was disappointed in him, that he didn’t like what Thrawn was doing here, maybe even disapproved of what Thrawn had become, of his daily actions, of the fact that he was still in the military at all? The Aristocra had given Thrawn an out after his mission with the Vagaari; Che'ri had read about it in his file but hadn't understood it entirely; it seemed as though they'd been pushing him to leave, removing all the penalties that a Chiss warrior normally incurred when he left the service. But Thrawn had refused, and now his brother was staring at him with cold and disappointed eyes; an aura of shame and hurt projected off him, so thick it was a wonder Thrawn didn't sense it, too.

“Che’ri?” Thrawn prompted, his voice soft, his eyes fixed unknowingly on his brother’s. Che’ri watched as rage contorted Thrass’s face; his lips moved, his words inaudible. What had she said earlier, when Thrawn asked her how adults behaved when they were upset? That they yelled, that their faces got flushed, that they threw up their hands, said awful things to each other, stormed away?

Thrass was doing all those things, had cycled through them all more than once since Thrawn came back onboard. As she watched, he tried to touch Thrawn’s injured chest; his hand seemed to connect, like one solid living being touching another, but Che’ri could tell from Thrawn’s face that he didn’t feel a thing. No pressure, no warmth.

And when Thrass turned away from him, he didn’t see it.

Che’ri took a deep breath.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

* * *

**Part II**

He’d been in the Ascendancy nearly seven years before Che’ri got to meet him — Thrawn’s protégé, the human commander he’d sent back from Lesser Space. Eli Vanto was taller than she’d heard him described, and nowhere near as uncultured and awkward as the Chiss warriors made him out to be; when Che’ri walked into Ar’alani’s office and saw him for the first time, she was struck by his poise, by the familiar straight set of his shoulders, the confident way he held his chin high. When he met her eyes, she got the odd feeling of familiarity, like she'd seen him a thousand times before.

She was looking at Thrawn’s body language, she realized. Thrawn’s mannerisms — it had been so long since she’d seen him that she’d almost forgotten — so deeply internalized by the human that it had stopped being an affectation and become a genuine part of him, as deeply ingrained as his accent, his love for numbers, his work ethic and iron will. He looked at her as she walked in with a frank curiosity not common to Chiss, but he respected proper military protocol and waited to be introduced.

“Commodore Che’ri,” Ar’alani said, gesturing to the human. “Commander Eli’van’to.”

They nodded to each other; Che’ri saw no spark of recognition in his eyes, no sign that he’d heard her name before, and tried not to show how that realization twisted her heart. She gave him a ghost of a smile and watched his eyes widen slightly, his facial heat flaring as _he_ recognized some of Thrawn’s body language in _her_.

“Commander Ivant is leading the search for Thrawn,” Ar’alani said.

...And that was when the mood changed entirely. Che’ri said nothing, and made sure her face said nothing for her, but she felt the beat of her heart pick up — and knew from the way the silence thickened and grew awkward that she wasn’t the only one affected by those words. She tore her eyes away from Vanto, determined not to study him.

Aloud, she said only, “I see,” and saw Vanto’s hand twitch at those words for reasons she couldn’t explain.

“Commander?” Ar’alani invited, her voice smooth.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Vanto respectfully. He stepped forward, his questis activated; for a moment, his voice sounded almost hoarse, but as he spoke, that quality faded and was replaced with quiet confidence and strength. “Our analysts have located a likely vector for the ISD _Chimaera_ not far off the Phalanx Route spinward from Crustai," he said. "Several habitable planets and moons are in the area, some of them far enough from local bases that any odd phenomena might go unnoticed. Others are in areas rarely patrolled by scout ships. If we widen the parameters to include planets which are only partially inhabitable, I've identified more than ten that could feasibly be survived by someone with access to the _Chimaera's_ technology."

Ar’alani accepted the questis, examining its displays with a doubtful look that stayed where it was, frozen and unchanging, throughout Vanto's explanation. Che'ri could tell by looking at her that she'd already made up her mind before Vanto walked into the room, maybe before he even started his research. “The odds of surviving the Chaos—” she said.

“With a purrgil at the helm?” asked Vanto; clearly, the question had provoked strong emotions, because he’d forgotten his place in the room and made no apology for interrupting. But Che’ri wasn’t surprised when Ar’alani let it slide. “With all respect, ma’am,” Vanto said, his voice still heated, “the odds are higher than you think. And regardless, this isn’t a mission we can afford to neglect. If the _Chimaera_ can be found—”

“It’s a waste of resources,” Ar’alani said, and her face was blank, but the pain in her voice matched Vanto’s entirely. “We _have_ ships, Commander Ivant; we don't need another one, particularly not one damaged by an uncharted trip through hyperspace. We have personnel; we don't need fifty thousand untrained Imperials who are unfamiliar with our equipment, likely injured, and ignorant of our language. We have plenty of skilled tacticians on every ship; like it or not, one isolated genius will not make a difference. There is nothing we can gain from the _Chimaera’s_ wreck to justify the waste of time and funds. Not with the Grysks encroaching on our territory from all sides.”

Vanto’s face worked; Che’ri couldn’t tell whether the heat in his cheeks was from fury or grief.

As gently as she could, Ar’alani said, “Thrawn wouldn’t want—”

“Don’t tell me what he’d want,” said Vanto quietly, voice thick. He stared down at the floor, refusing to meet Ar’alani’s eyes. “I know what he—”

Eyes squeezed shut. A brief flare of heat, and then a sudden cooling as he got himself under control and the threat of tears faded away. When Vanto spoke again, his voice was controlled.

“I know he wouldn’t want this,” he said in a whisper. In his face, Che’ri saw the expression of a protégé who knew he hadn’t lived up to expectations; she saw a man standing steady with the weight of seven years' imagined disappointment on his shoulders. He thought he was letting Thrawn down; he thought Thrawn would be ashamed of him.

She glanced over Vanto’s shoulder, at the echo of life that stood behind him, visible to only her. Thrawn met her eyes in silent, stubborn pride; as if in defiance of her — or in defiance of _everyone_ — he stepped up to Vanto’s side, put a hand on Vanto’s shoulder in support. Vanto's eyes closed, almost like he could feel it.

“He's out there,” Vanto whispered. "And I don't care what he would want. I _have_ to keep looking."


End file.
